Us President Joe Biden's administration has recently recommended to Alphabet's Google and Facebook's parent company Meta to obtain permission to use an undersea cable system to handle growing internet traffic to Asia.
The US presidential administration has also urged the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to license companies to send and receive data on the existing 8,000-mile Pacific Light cable network. The undersea fiber-optic cable system connects the US, Taiwan, the Philippines, and Hong Kong.
Undersea cables transmit almost all the internet data traffic in the world. Meta asked permission to use the Philippine-US territory. At the same time, Google has asked permission to connect with Taiwan. Meanwhile, companies are committed to protecting the privacy and security of American data, especially against China's intelligence operations.
Google and Meta's plan dropped an earlier proposal to use network cable for China-controlled Hong Kong. That's because, in 2020, many US government agencies recommended blocking that program.
The US Justice Department subsequently said that 'due to China's repeated efforts to extract important personal data of millions of Americans, national security agreements are needed with Google and Meta.' But the Chinese embassy in Washington and Google did not immediately comment.
Google said in 2020 that data connections were needed to handle the increasing traffic between Taiwan and its data centers in the US. Meanwhile, a Meta company spokesman said the cable system increases Internet capacity between the US and the Philippines. It helps people stay in touch and share content.
He said cables are secure and data is protected by advanced encryption. According to the contracts, Google and Meta must carry out annual assessments of the risk to sensitive data, and they can control or stop data traffic on cables within 24 hours. About 300 undersea cables that carry 99% of the world's data traffic are the backbone of the Internet.
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